Frode Bolhuis Roaming the Unknown

There is a certain intangibility when one ventures into the unknown, a weightlessness that keeps things in a transient order. With every step taken towards an unknown destination, things become more transparent and the skin of the world leaves behind another layer.

We make objects so as to give ourselves exterior bodies, yet with every object we build the world leaves behind another layer and we venture more into the density of matter.

It is this adventure that the work of Frode Bolhuis tries to assemble through the delicacy of things. Life and the exterior world are a delicate layer we bear off with every attempt to venture further, and with it all our memories and feelings, all the fantasies and discoveries. There is no end in the works of Frode Bolhuis. There is indefiniteness, an interval where things reveal their inner nature, and there is letup in front of the world. Time does not pass here, as the entire world is seen through its interruptions, through its silent disconnection and isolation. Yet it is silence and disconnection that re-creates the layers of the world here, and it is through isolation and contemplation that we are given a pause to look back at that which builds us from the inside. It is this suspension that re-arranges things in their own conscious and subconscious interval so as to give a moment of respite for she/he who dares to roam the unknown. The more we look at these suspended animationsand figure out a world beyond the opaque paints used by the artist, the closer we are to understand these objects as a wisp of life that remains whenever we forget to look back at that which pushes us ever further.

The work of Frode Bolhuis is emotional beyond all doubt, but emotion is not only a heart beat here, it is also a fantasy, a way to reach beyond the given and to accept, perhaps, that which evades us every time. When wandering on the edges of the unknown, all we are left to do is remember, forget, and take a step further every time.

This work was shown at gallery Bart kunst in huis as part of an exhibition that opened April 14, 2012.